Cruel Mistress
by sparkycircuit
Summary: She had assumed, in what she had thought was infinite wisdom, that they were hollow words, some old Greek in a toga attempting to make death seem like a less demanding mistress. Spoilers for JE.


**Cruel Mistress**

There were, in fact, fates worse then death.

Donna Noble, the pathetic, unimportant little temp, not even a blip on the radar of humanity (at least to herself) had never thought those words could be true. She had assumed, in what she had thought was infinite wisdom, that they were hollow words, some old Greek in a toga attempting to make death seem like a less demanding mistress. She recalled, briefly, the first time she had encountered death- she had been six, and her dog had died. It had been incomprehensible. How could the dog just cease to be? It had, for better or worse, blown her mind, and the concept hadn't become any easier to wrap her head around. Her father's death was just another startling reminder that death was, in fact, a cruel mistress, and that it seemed to take perverse pleasure in sweeping away time and place, and events that could have happened without so much as a blink.

But she had met that man, that wonderful man, who had stopped her death. When Lance had fallen, somewhere, deep in her heart, she had already condemned herself. This was insurmountable, this was the end.

But he had stood there, the strange little spaceman who she didn't really know, telling her to swing, saving her life. He had circumvented her own destruction and in doing so, simultaneously caused the destruction of another. It had been a horrible, but almost inspiring thing to behold, this man with fire in his eyes and what she had thought might be ice in his heart. He needed someone to stop him, she'd said, and she still believed that was true, but she had been wrong. It wasn't ice in his heart, it was fire. This man had taken humanity, the whole of history to his heart, and it wasn't a small thing. She had learned very quickly that when the Doctor decided to care about someone, that meant a fierce protectiveness. To cross one of his companions was perhaps even worse then crossing the man himself.

She wondered why it was so. Perhaps it was because death wasn't his cruel mistress, it was life that ruled his world. He had spent nine hundred years losing all that was near and dear to him, and perhaps that made him cling to what he had all the more. All things must end, and perhaps that was what the Doctor knew better then anyone with a shorter life sentence.

Maybe that was why she really realized with sinking dread what he was about to do. Logically, she had realized what the steps he had to take to save her were moments earlier- she had the mind of a Time Lord now, and ironically that which would kill her also told her how she could be saved. Her emotions though, were slow to catch up, but as they did, it just intensified her anguish. She understood what she was risking, but she also knew what she was losing, and that was perhaps worse. She also knew that she could do nothing to stop it. She would let the Time Lord save her, as much as it killed her to do so because he needed to save her, and that wasn't her mind telling her that- that was that little spark of humanity reminding her that he may have been her savior at the beginning, saving her from her insignificant little life when all she had known were death and taxes, but now she needed to save him.

He had shown her what lit the stars, and that made the loss all the more painful. It was worth dying to keep the memory of what she'd had. Forgetting was, at that moment, a fate worse then death, and Donna understood the curse of her own humanity in that moment so perfectly that all she could do was cry and plead with a desperation in her own voice that she hoped she would never hear again. It was her last chance to die, to take her knowledge with her, but she had lost. His hands framed her face, and she wouldn't be granted the mercy of death.

There are fates worse then death- walking among the stars and losing them all over again is one of them.

* * *

A/N: I wrote a Journey's End one shot from the Doctor's perspective, so I figured I'd try to write one from Donna's. Any opinions you have would be greatly appreciated, and I hope you enjoyed the story!


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